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Actually it has quite a lot of nice stuff under the hood for stills. One thing I'm curious about is the "exposure smoothing" technology for timelapse. Currently the d800 is a pain in the bum for timelapse as it open and closes the iris for every exposure. This seems to be mechanically connected to the mirror mechanism because it doesn't do it in live view mode. If they are digitally smoothing exposure without addressing this SNAFU then facepalming will ensue

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To me this seems like the camera the d800 should have been from the beginning.

One very nice feature is the highlight metered mode (iso 64+high DR comes in quite handy, doesn't it?), this is like ETTR on Magic Lantern, in fact they seem to have incorporated quite some stuff from magic lantern.

Smooth aperture changes during video also sounds nice. If it does not line skip (this is very improbable), this could be a nice working horse.

Oh, and it has an clarity option for picture style, every photojournalist needs clarity...

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What's weird is... Panasonic is also a Japanese company. But they seem to have no problem embracing video.

Nah, it's not weird, it's just about basic market dynamics. Panasonic embrace video because they have to. Nikon, on the other hand, which is (still) the other ruler of the market dunghill, can still get away with doing very little. They can still rely on their massive market inertia supporting them and carrying them forward. For now. Until even the late adopting masses start looking elsewhere.

Another route Nikon could take in the near future is the niche route. Which is to carry on their traditional line and trying to rule that shrunken niche of their choosing, for as long as possible. But that's another story for another topic.

Anyway, I recommend a book called Purple Cow by Seth Godin. It's quite interesting, and it might help in understanding the intrigues of the modern camera market.

In that sense, both Panasonic and Sony are the underdogs who need a "purple cow." Something that stands out from the uniform crowd owned by the market leader, aka Canikon. They cannot possibly win the game ruled by the market leader, so they'll have a much better chance making it by changing the game. Or by choosing another game. The GH4 is a "purple cow." So is the A7s, and the whole A7 line, in fact. Looks like it's working for both companies, if ever so slowly. But it's working, and that's no surprise. The purple cow will win, eventually.

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Nah, it's not weird, it's just about basic market dynamics. Panasonic embrace video because they have to. Nikon, on the other hand, which is (still) the other ruler of the market dunghill, can still get away with doing very little. They can still rely on their massive market inertia supporting them and carrying them forward. For now. Until even the late adopting masses start looking elsewhere.

Another route Nikon could take in the near future is the niche route. Which is to carry on their traditional line and trying to rule that shrunken niche of their choosing, for as long as possible. But that's another story for another topic.

Anyway, I recommend a book called Purple Cow by Seth Godin. It's quite interesting, and it might help in understanding the intrigues of the modern camera market.

In that sense, both Panasonic and Sony are the underdogs who need a "purple cow." Something that stands out from the uniform crowd owned by the market leader, aka Canikon. They cannot possibly win the game ruled by the market leader, so they'll have a much better chance making it by changing the game. Or by choosing another game. The GH4 is a "purple cow." So is the A7s, and the whole A7 line, in fact. Looks like it's working for both companies, if ever so slowly. But it's working, and that's no surprise. The purple cow will win, eventually.

Yeah... the GH4 seems to be rocking the boat quite a bit. A7 series too. Panasonic and Sony have been in professional video for quite some time... VariCam, CineAlta, etc. It's nice that they are bringing their talents to their consumer products.

I was shocked to hear that Dave Dugdale is leaving Canon. Then again... Canon doesn't seem to be interested in putting the same kinds of video features in their DSLRs that Panasonic offers in the GH4.

You might be right... over time those kinds of decisions might hurt the old guard.

I was looking at a GH4... but I settled on a Canon 70D instead. I liked the GH4 but it would have cost a lot more to get into the m43 platform.

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I have to think that Nikon's marketing team saw that the Panasonic GH4 has been a runaway success, and they want to get in on the action. Panasonic is backordered on the GH4. The engineering of the D810 was done before Panasonic released the GH4, so they were stuck with what they had. If you look at the reviews of the GH4 on B&H Photo, they got 5 stars from over 50 people, with only two people giving it a 4 star. This is in about a month. That's unbelievable. Obviously, good video features means something to a lot of buyers now.

Michael

Nikon doesn't change cameras drastically with these in-between refreshes (though some will ask what is up with the D4 vs the D3s), so I expect to see Nikon's real response with the D900 and the D... err... well whatever that comes after the D610.

I still think at this stage, without a proper mirrorless system (the 1s are still too heavily compromised for day-to-day pro work), Nikon will struggle in this field. Most have already given up on Nikon, and I am also not caring too much about Nikon for use in video work, having switched away last year.

I am trying out a Fuji X-T1 for stills. That is arguably far nicer to use than the D810, so they are behind in that as well. DSLR form factor = dated.

While the form factor is dated, I still don't like the UI of X-T1 that much. The GH4/GH3 is so much better, as is the Olympus E-M1.

The Nikon UI is still one of the best for stills, and it's hard to top it.

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Nikon really intends to make a 4k dslr in a while, for now they are simply following their usual shedule of updating their already released cameras as they did since D100, D1 until now.

Usually for nikon you have the new camera and its "s" or .100 or .300 or .10 etc, and then you get the real new deal after.

Working with a D800 and a Hacked gh2 has been really fun for me and it produces absolut mint images when you know how to use them in shooting and in post production.

I don't feel the urge, with such a good camera to switch to the newer or the last 4k. My clients are always blown away by everything produced on this camera. And for stills, I can say that it has been a real breakthrough that allowed me not to deal anymore with hasselblad for fashion shoots and its been a real relief in terms of investments.

Furthermore, the 24mb/s codec provided on the d800 amazed me as I could produce as good images as my hacked gh2 in 90mb/s //100mb/s and they allow me to go far more deep in color corrections than gh2 and 5DmkII allowed me (Hacked and magic lanterned - not talking about raw).

Needless to say that the last nikon hack of 60mb/s for the D800 really does the trick and allows to avoid all ninja external recorders and is a really light solution for heavy shooting, I have been processing some tests and edit that really makes a good 1080P camera.

My advice is, after you've done your edit cut, encode your video files on DNXHD 350 and then post prod them as you want you'll really have something quite heavy looking to deal with that will compare easilly to more "professionnal" video solutions.

For example, a trailer for a photo shoot I did for ELLE:

Vimeo compression makes it a bit blocky, but it does the same with every good quality pictures lately (gh4, 5dMIII raw, BMP), like if there were too much quality to handle for the compression.

For moire, the video filter to put inside that corrects it really works like magic, it is expensive (around 300â‚¬), but brings you an image so beautifull and a flawless free - of - moire picture that I find it essential to deal with, while preserving the mind blowing quality of this 24mb/s h264 video files.

Putting it to shoot video really allows me to separate the video from photo situations for my clients as they understand that while shooting video the camera has been changed so they can't ask for one little photo while making videos.

And yet, I never felt the need to psuh forward details in post prod on this camera. Not so many can say that.

;-)

So, yes, if you are a professional and have no d800, d600, no 5DMkIII yet, this D810 can really be a great deal for you on both stills and video.

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Yeah... the GH4 seems to be rocking the boat quite a bit. A7 series too. Panasonic and Sony have been in professional video for quite some time... VariCam, CineAlta, etc. It's nice that they are bringing their talents to their consumer products.

The (more) professional video side of things is actually more interesting than on the mainstream photo/video side, and over there the roles are almost reversed. Not quite, but almost. On the pro vide side, Sony and Panasonic are the established players, Canon is just one of the many newer players but they don't own the pro market, and the role of the purple cow is being played by the likes of Blackmagic, and perhaps even Digital Bolex.

But the situation over there is slightly different, as no one has a clear dominance over the whole market segment, and gear is being rented rather than bought more often than on the consumer side. The market dynamics are not quite the same over there, but the same principles still apply.

I was shocked to hear that Dave Dugdale is leaving Canon.

This is something that has puzzled me once in a while, so I'll just ask why? Why is that shocking?

Unless you know him personally, why would you care what some online/YouTube celebs/geeks like Dave Dugdale are shooting with?

Does it really matter what they are using, and why would/should it affect you in any way?

Do you let the online celebs choose your gear for you?

Not bashing, not judging, just curious.

I'm aware of the lemming effect and the concept of projecting, but I'm just curious how the actual thought process goes.

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So, there is a rolling shutter at 8m18s? Probably. But where is itin other scenes?I would expect it to appearin many moreplaces or at least more apparent. Helicoptershot?Bladesthat rotatecan notbe fixedin post, that was not shot with rolling shutter camera. FX maybe? hhhmmmmm

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Nikon really intends to make a 4k dslr in a while, for now they are simply following their usual shedule of updating their already released cameras as they did since D100, D1 until now.

Usually for nikon you have the new camera and its "s" or .100 or .300 or .10 etc, and then you get the real new deal after.

Working with a D800 and a Hacked gh2 has been really fun for me and it produces absolut mint images when you know how to use them in shooting and in post production.

I don't feel the urge, with such a good camera to switch to the newer or the last 4k. My clients are always blown away by everything produced on this camera. And for stills, I can say that it has been a real breakthrough that allowed me not to deal anymore with hasselblad for fashion shoots and its been a real relief in terms of investments.

Furthermore, the 24mb/s codec provided on the d800 amazed me as I could produce as good images as my hacked gh2 in 90mb/s //100mb/s and they allow me to go far more deep in color corrections than gh2 and 5DmkII allowed me (Hacked and magic lanterned - not talking about raw).

Needless to say that the last nikon hack of 60mb/s for the D800 really does the trick and allows to avoid all ninja external recorders and is a really light solution for heavy shooting, I have been processing some tests and edit that really makes a good 1080P camera.

My advice is, after you've done your edit cut, encode your video files on DNXHD 350 and then post prod them as you want you'll really have something quite heavy looking to deal with that will compare easilly to more "professionnal" video solutions.

For example, a trailer for a photo shoot I did for ELLE:

Vimeo compression makes it a bit blocky, but it does the same with every good quality pictures lately (gh4, 5dMIII raw, BMP), like if there were too much quality to handle for the compression.

For moire, the video filter to put inside that corrects it really works like magic, it is expensive (around 300â‚¬), but brings you an image so beautifull and a flawless free - of - moire picture that I find it essential to deal with, while preserving the mind blowing quality of this 24mb/s h264 video files.

Putting it to shoot video really allows me to separate the video from photo situations for my clients as they understand that while shooting video the camera has been changed so they can't ask for one little photo while making videos.

And yet, I never felt the need to psuh forward details in post prod on this camera. Not so many can say that.

;-)

So, yes, if you are a professional and have no d800, d600, no 5DMkIII yet, this D810 can really be a great deal for you on both stills and video.

Welcome to the forums, Tusoli. Beautiful work (and a little scary, too!)

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Nikon really intends to make a 4k dslr in a while, for now they are simply following their usual shedule of updating their already released cameras as they did since D100, D1 until now.

Usually for nikon you have the new camera and its "s" or .100 or .300 or .10 etc, and then you get the real new deal after.

Working with a D800 and a Hacked gh2 has been really fun for me and it produces absolut mint images when you know how to use them in shooting and in post production.

I don't feel the urge, with such a good camera to switch to the newer or the last 4k. My clients are always blown away by everything produced on this camera. And for stills, I can say that it has been a real breakthrough that allowed me not to deal anymore with hasselblad for fashion shoots and its been a real relief in terms of investments.

Furthermore, the 24mb/s codec provided on the d800 amazed me as I could produce as good images as my hacked gh2 in 90mb/s //100mb/s and they allow me to go far more deep in color corrections than gh2 and 5DmkII allowed me (Hacked and magic lanterned - not talking about raw).

Needless to say that the last nikon hack of 60mb/s for the D800 really does the trick and allows to avoid all ninja external recorders and is a really light solution for heavy shooting, I have been processing some tests and edit that really makes a good 1080P camera.

My advice is, after you've done your edit cut, encode your video files on DNXHD 350 and then post prod them as you want you'll really have something quite heavy looking to deal with that will compare easilly to more "professionnal" video solutions.